Review Summary: A basic and quite standard melodic death-metal album with a great mix of melody and aggression. This was the last album from the Swedish death-metal band called Divine Souls.
After thrash-metal came death-metal, a genre that had a huge impact upon metal music, all around the world people became more interested in this violent, extreme and unpleasant form of metal. Brutal death, old-school death, technical death, atmospheric death, death-metal has been played in many different ways since it was invented by bands like
Morbid Angel and
Death, but, the most remarkable form of death-metal has to be melodic death-metal.
In Flames from Sweden are considered to have invented this perfected and well sounding death-metal concoction, other noticeable bands that followed
In Flames were also
Dark Tranquillity and
At The Gates. This new sound had the same effect on the people as thrash-metal did, people grabbed their instruments and started their own bands and a new metal form was rising. Melodic death-metal is a quite easy-digested style of music; it would even grasp people who even didn’t like metal music. But even melodic death-metal had the same experiences as thrash-metal had, melodic death-metal would eventually flood the market, bands with more or less potential were overlooked and only the strongest survived. It was not necessary that many bands were overlooked, some bands broke-up by other reasons as well. Somewhere in 1997 a band emerged in a small town in the north of Sweden called Kramfors, this band was known as
Divine Souls,
Divine Souls was formed by a man called
Mikael Lindgren, he was also the front man and lead guitarist of this band.
Divine Souls managed to release two albums before they disbanded,
Embodiment and
The Bitter Selfcaged Man, the reason why the band broke-up was because of
Mikael Lindgren’s lack of interest of continue with the band. He was basically responsible for all the songs and song writing, perhaps he thought it became boring when nobody helped him or gave him other ideas or suggestions.
Divine Souls didn’t contribute with something groundbreaking to the melodic death-metal genre but they created music which is definitely worth listening to.
The Bitter Selfcaged Man was their last metal effort,
The Bitter Selfcaged Man is simply melodic death-metal, here you have well executed but perhaps a bit generic mix of melodic tunes and aggression. The overall music is aggressive but it is also beautiful at the same time, the overall sound is very heavy and thick, you can easily sort out the instruments, except for the bass which is a bit faded by the guitars. Everything has a great flow; the only exception would by the vocals which can be a bit boring with time. It is a beautiful and nice sounding record indeed but it has also a dark and somewhat depressing atmosphere because of the lyrics. Death-metal is known for having lyrics based on extreme themes, blood, gore, violence, hatred, anti-religious stuff and so on.
Divine Souls uses in this album lyrics based on sadness, darkness, hatred, disbelieve, betrayal and some anti-directed religious lyrics. All these messages can be heard in this album.
Divine Souls was a group of five members,
Mattias Lilja was the vocalist, perhaps not the best vocalist but he did a nice job. Unfortunately there is a lack of variation in the overall vocal work, black-metal snarling is the main dish in all the songs, it reminds you of
Peter Tagtgren’s type of snarling, you will only experience clean singing in the track called
When Life Slips Away.
Mikael Lindgren was the founder of this band, his duty was the lead guitar and he really did his job well. His melodic soloing and lead work cuts like a knife through butter, still nothing revolutionary or highly complex or technical but these melodic tunes gives the songs depth and character, some leads might be similar sometimes but it still sounds very good.
Stefan Hogberg was the rhythm guitarist, he did also well with his guitar. He stood for all the rhythm sections, here you have catchy, solid and very heavy riffing, even if he only played the rhythm tracks also he manages to create an atmosphere to the songs so there are no signs of repetition.
Daniel Lindgren was the bassist, not much to say about him except that he follows the rhythm guitar very good. He definitely helps to add a massive sound the rhythms.
Daniel Sjolund was the drummer, he was a very good drummer. Here you have a great set of easy-digested drum parts, there is nothing too aggressive or too lame, double bass drumming pops up a little now and then while the main course is heavy, catchy and experienced drumming.
Were there any very bad or very good things about this album? No, actually not, if I had to sort out some things I thought were bad then it would’ve been the vocals and perhaps the guitar work. The vocals got a bit boring after some time and it was because of the lack of variation, if the album had more vocal work similar to
When Life Slips Away then I wouldn’t complain. The second thing I would criticize would be the guitar work, I personally love it but sometimes it felt like the lead guitar was almost about to repeat itself. Some songs had similar lead work which was a bit of a disappointment, some of the solos also tends to sound similar to the lead work, but I like the overall guitar performance so I wont complain that much. Other than that the rest of the album was flawless in my opinion, melody was perfectly blended with the aggression and heaviness from death-metal, plus; the album had an awesome atmosphere that made it quite dark and slightly depressive.
Divine Souls was a good melodic death-metal band in my opinion, but unfortunately they are no longer with us today, they left a trace which is worth following though. Definitely a good melodic death-metal album that will stick around for a while, if you like this album then you will enjoy it for a long period of time. If you think that other melodic-death bands are a bit too rough or extreme then you should check out this album. Even experienced metal fans should also take a look at this album, especially people who are dedicated to the melodic death-metal genre. It might not be the ultimate metal album but it is definitely not a bad album, I encourage people who like bands like
In Flames,
Hypocrisy or
Nightshade to search for this album, it is an excellent album! Sometimes you have to gamble, if you find this and perhaps you don’t like it then you can always go back to your favourite bands. If you happen to find this and really enjoy it then you have given your metal collection an extra face lift.
Pros
+ A very melodic and heavy album
+ Awesome guitar work, especially the lead guitar
+ This album has an atmosphere that makes it beautiful, dark and sad
+ Memorable songs
Cons
- The vocal work lacks of variation
- The lead guitar sometimes sounds similar to other tracks on the album
Recommended Tracks
-- When Life Slips Away
-- Bleed
-- Silhouette
-- Bitter Selfcaged Man
This album will receive a solid and well earned 4/5
